race [OE] The earliest sense of race was of rapid forward movement. It comes from Old Norse rás ‘current’. Senses that developed in the 16th century were ‘contest of speed’ and ‘channel, path’, as in mill race [LME] or ‘mill stream’. The idea of a race against time as a situation in which you try to do or complete something in a given time or before something else happens is found from the mid 19th century. Race with the meaning ‘a division of humankind’ dates from the 16th century, and is a quite different word. It probably comes via French from an Italian word, razza, of unknown origin. See also rat.